Planetarium Visit

Today a group of us went for a visit to the planetarium at Napier Boys High School. First we watched a video of a rocket taking off and some astronauts living in space. Then we all moved into anther room so that we could see the stars! We were shown exactly what the night sky would look like tonight (if it wasn't so cloudy and rainy) and we were shown a few different constellations. We then saw how the stars move across the sky in the space of a day and how the 'Seven Sisters' of Matariki rise in the morning.

Here are some of the things that the children liked about our planetarium visit...

Caelyn - "Eating lollies upside down in space".

Kian - "We saw two man's hanging upside down".

Netana - "Book".

Noah - "Moon, blue, black".

Maia - "The 7 sisters went round and round".

Paige - "Nana, car, twinkle twinkle".

Thanks to Kian's Dad and Paige's Nana and Aunty for bringing their cars and coming along to help out!

Jess

Mixing up ingredients

This afternoon we mixed up brightly coloured muffins. Charlie requested black coloured muffins, but then the group settled for blue and red coloured muffins. Kian broke and stirred in the eggs, Paige had a good mix together with the wooden spoon, while Noah waited for his turn. Harry waited for a long time to combine the muffin mixture with blue food colouring, and Charlie sift the flour. These muffins we wrapped up and named to be taken home.

Jessie

Paapaakiri bread

On Wenerei (Wednesday) we made Paapaakiri bread (flat bread) and butter with a group of children.

We measured out all of our ingredients for the bread, we mixed, we kneaded, and then it was ready to cook. It looked like a giant scone. To make butter we poured in a bottle of cream and shook, and shook, and shook, and shook.....

Charlie showed great persistence with making this, we found jumping up and down while we shook the shaker really helped.

We had the bread and butter with homemade jam for pm/tea- yum.

Process cooking exposes children to early science concepts. They are able to observe that effect that temperature, force and interaction have to change row ingredients into a new product. The butter e.g., cream stared as liquid and the interaction and force changed this into a solid mass. Physical science is the interactions between matter and form and the study of change.

Authors of 'Who Am I in Teaching Lives of Children?, Introduction to Early Childhood Education' believe- "That science education for younger children must not only be hands on, but must also be mind on".

Rie

Little scientisits

On Friday Eneri, Charlie, Theo, Isaac, Taylah, Maia, Sophie and Donnagh experimented with the properties of milk. We added dishwashing liquid (soap) to milk and then added dye (food colouring). We watched the colours swirl, tumble and churn to make interesting patterns. The soap breaks down the chemicals holding the protein moledules together in the milk. The protein and fat moledules in the milk start to disperse and mix and this causes the churning action.

We then experimented with primary colours blue, red and yellow and discovered that we could make secondary colours orange and green. The children went on to explore with cornflour gloop and were amazed at the way it changes form and from hard to soft.

We were learning about physical science, the study of matter, form and change.

Rie and Jessie